We all love freshly-baked goodies at the holidays. I come from a family where the holidays were an excuse to have a baking extravaganza with a million different types of Christmas cookies, so for me nothing says "Merry Christmas" like over-baking. It is a blast to make cookies...when you don't have small children. If you do, you have two equally undesirable options - to try to complete your cookie mission with their unique brand of "help" or to frantically bake your ass off in furtive, late night sessions after they are asleep. Neither is much fun.
Every year I make my grandmother's sugar cookie recipe, which involves making dough, chilling overnight, rolling out, cutting, and decorating. And for the past 4 years, it has also involved hollering at my children, who are underfoot while I make them. No more this year. At Halloween we got the bag of Betty Crocker Sugar cookie dough, which looked and tasted the same, especially once my kids got done with their decorating magic. This year for Christmas, we're streamlining baking - we're going the Betty route again and cutting out all of the other hundreds of different kinds we usually make altogether.
If you bake for gifts, then carry on with your furtive, late night baking as baked goods are always among the more affordable and appreciated gifts. As for me, I'll choke down one red-hot laden candy cane cookie courtesy of my son and then thank my children for all the calories they've saved me this year.
I'm a big fan of the cookie exchange myself. There's a group of 10 of us who are each going to bake a different kind of cookie. Then, we are going to package them in groups of 1/2 dozen, so we only have to make 5 dozen(or 4.5 if you don't want any of your own) and then meet to exchange them. This way, we are each going to walk away with 5 dozen cookies, 10 different varieties. Really, the average cookie recipe makes at least 3 dozen cookies, so it doesn't take long to make that many cookies. Oh, and I encourage signing up early for the cookie exchange so that you can pick the easiest and least time-consuming cookie you can think of.
Posted by: Michelle | Dec 15, 2008 at 01:28 PM
Agreed. Cookie exchanges can be great. Though I never ever feel the need for that many cookies in my house. I haven't attended to "take home" the past two years because it's just too hard having THAT many cookies at home.
Posted by: Linda | Dec 15, 2008 at 01:51 PM
That's true, but you can also save them for whatever holiday party where you are supposed to bring a dish. Volunteer to bring a cookie tray and something you can pick up at the store, like juice. You look like you did a whole lot of work. ;)
Posted by: Michelle | Dec 15, 2008 at 07:37 PM
Luckily - my favorite cookies are pretty easy to make. So I can actually do this with three little ones running around. Of course I have to deal with a lot of begging, but I just give them little pieces of cookies so it seems like they're getting a lot as opposed to a few. Exactly how old are kids when you can't get away with this anymore? I suspect the they already know and are just letting me think that I'm fooling them...
Posted by: Kate Coveny Hood | Dec 16, 2008 at 01:43 AM